The present disclosure relates to the field of computer data processing, and more particularly, to a system and method for increasing the conversion rate of a computerized sales system such as an e-commerce website.
Online shopping, or e-commerce, has enjoyed unprecedented growth in recent years, with consumers spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually on online purchases. An endless variety of goods and services are now available for purchase online, such as, for example, hard goods, soft goods, foodstuffs, and digital media. To make an online purchase, a consumer will typically use an access device, such as a personal computer or mobile wireless device. The consumer access device may run a web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer, for accessing a merchant's e-commerce website via a data network, such as the Internet. Upon accessing an e-commerce website, a consumer is generally presented with a variety of product offerings, which may include a textual description of a product, as well as representative photographs, videos and sounds related to the product. Often, the e-commerce website will provide directory and search functions to allow the consumer to quickly find desired items based upon keywords, manufacturer, model number, and the like. One or more items offered for sale may be presented on a web page. Additionally, an e-commerce website will often provide a shopping cart, which is a list of items the consumer has selected for purchase. An c-commerce site will often extend conditional promotions to the consumer, for example, free shipping with the purchase of one or more items whose total purchase price meets a certain condition, such as exceeding a threshold amount, i.e., fifty dollars. Such a conditional promotion may be said to be a “threshold promotion.”
To select a product for purchase, the consumer will typically click on a link provided on the web page, which causes an entry corresponding to the item to be added to the shopping cart. The consumer may proceed to add additional items to shopping cart, modify existing items in the shopping cart, or delete existing items in the shopping cart. After the consumer is satisfied with the shopping cart selections, the consumer may finalize the order. During finalization, or “checkout”, the consumer is typically provided with the item subtotal cost, shipping cost, sales tax if applicable, and the total cost of the order. Additionally, the e-commerce site may solicit from the consumer additional information necessary to complete the transaction, such as name, shipping address, billing address, email address, telephone number, and credit card or other payment information. Once the requested information has been provided, the consumer may be given an opportunity to review the order, and finally, consummate the transaction by clicking on a link, such as a “submit my order” or “buy” link, which causes the shopping cart and associated consumer information to be accepted as an order, effectuates the sale, and processes the order for fulfillment. The percentage of e-commerce website visitors who ultimately make a purchase is said to be the “conversion rate” of that website. For example, if two hundred consumers visit a website and ten of those consumers make a purchase, the conversion rate would be five percent.
However, many times a consumer will proceed through an online purchase process yet fail to consummate the transaction, essentially abandoning the shopping cart. In a common scenario, a consumer will add the desired items to the shopping cart, and initiate the checkout process in order to get a true indication of the total purchase cost, including shipping and tax. If the merchant has extended a threshold promotion which requires some minimum purchase amount, the consumer may begin the checkout process to determine whether the order qualifies for the promotional offer. For example, a consumer will go through the process of purchasing items to see whether free shipping will be offered. If the order does not meet the promotional threshold, the consumer may need to hunt for additional items on the merchant's website in order to meet the promotional threshold, an onerous distraction which can cause the sale to be lost. Often the consumer will simply abandon the shopping cart and perhaps visit another online merchant in an attempt to find a better deal.
Consumer abandonment, or shopping cart abandonment, is a matter of serious concern to online merchants. By some estimates shopping cart abandonment causes over sixty percent of potential online sales to be lost. It would greatly benefit online merchants to reduce the number of shopping carts abandoned on their e-commerce websites, and to convert those potentially lost buyers into paying customers.